My "In Plain Sight" Experience

Chnyst · 22 Sep 07 :: 05:30

Okay, this is really long and kind of boring, but I told you guys that I would share my experience so here it goes!! (I copied it mostly from a little journal that I like to keep of semi-interesting things that happen to me)

Last Thursday, Sept 13th, 2007, I was working at my day job Fastenal and noticed that I had a voicemail on my cell phone. I didn't show any missed calls, but I was inside of a large warehouse- and signal strength was at a minimum. I figured the call was from my mother in law or dad, but was surprised to hear that it was the same casting agency that had hired me for Wildfire. I was filled with excitement and couldn't wait to call them back about the possible opening. The message was from Darlene's assistant, Olga. She said that there was a featured extra waiter position open for a new television show called, "In Plain Sight" and that I was wanted for an Upscale Art Gallery scene. It would be an all-day shoot on Tuesday, Sept 18th. I thought it was kind of amusing that I was wanted as a waiter again since that was what I did in Wildfire. I was also surprised to get a call from them in the first place since my last feature was Wildfire which took place last August, over a year ago.
Well, I made sure I got the day off from work and called back the casting department to let them know I was indeed interested in the part. The wardrobe department called me and told me to wear black pants, a black belt, and black shoes. (Which were gonna be the same ones I wore in Wildfire.) They would supply the dress shirt and bolo.
So come early Tuesday morning, I got up, showered, took Jacen to school, then drove down to the parking area for the extras down on Central and 2nd street. The call was for 10 am and I arrived around 9:40 am. A security guard was there and told me to wait for the next shuttle to come by. While waiting, a few other extras showed up and we all started to chit chat. Pretty much everyone there had already been an extra in some other feature, mostly Wildfire since they were in their 3rd season and used a lot of extras. Anyways, the van arrived and took us to the El Rey/Golden Saloon theater which is where Base Camp was set up at. We checked in at the Golden Saloon bar, filled out our time sheets and I-9s, then headed over to wardrobe to be fitted in our costumes. Most of the extras were going to be the art gallery attendants and their costumes ranged from jeans and dress shirts, to evening gowns and suits. I was one of three waiters along with a bartender and we all wore white, long sleeve shirts, with a black and silver bolo, to give us that southwestern look. After we finished suiting up in the trailers, we headed back to the saloon and got our make-up done. That basically consists of a darker-toned flesh color that they put all over your face. We all looked like pallbearers with bad fake tans. Once we were done with the makeup, we were told to grab some breakfast. The breakfast table was pretty much down to the leftovers that none of the crew wanted. So I ended up eating some Honey Dew and a cup of yogurt. I knew I was gonna be hungry 15 minutes later, but there wasn't much I could do. I befriended a couple of extras, 2 who were going to be waiters (Elisha and Richard) and Jessica who was a gallery guest. I also bumped into Jan Simpson, who was my old boss from TCBY when I was in High School, which was really amusing because we had also worked on Wildfire together. The AD showed up and had us walk across the street to where the scene was being shot. It was an actual art gallery called, "516 Arts", but all the original works had been taken down to make room for the artwork that was made for the scene. The scene/show actually takes place in New Mexico and has something to do with US Marshalls and the Witness Protection Program. The Gallery was called The J Arnstein Gallery and was supposed to be in Tijeras, NM. As I entered the gallery, I was given a black apron to put on. I still had my sunglasses and t-shirt in my hand that I had worn to the shoot and wasn't able to find a safe place to lay them down. I quickly stashed them behind one of these black sofas that were in the gallery. The gallery had three main rooms in it. The first was the biggest, where the front doors were, and it emptied into a smaller second room where the bar was, and then into a third room which only half was visible because the director and all the monitors were in the other half hidden behind a wall. It was a pretty basic set. It consisted of all white walls, with a few paintings hanging on each one, with some coffee tables and black sofas lining the walls as well. There were also some flowers in clear vases spread throughout the set. Nothing too crazy. I was sent to the middle room where the bar was and the AD was directing each of the extras telling them what to do in the scene. His name was Keith and while he seemed a little rushed and a little stressed, he was very nice and explained each of our actions in detail which is something that didn't happen on the Wildfire shoot. I was given a silver tray with four champagne glasses that had been taped down on it. I was also given 3 other glasses that weren't taped down so that I could give them to the art enthusiasts as they walked through the gallery. The other two waiters were carrying trays of truffles and chocolate covered pastries that actually looked pretty good. I was to begin at the front of the gallery, where the lead actress Mary MacCormick walks in, I offer her a drink but she just walks by me, so I offer the next couple a drink that walks in and the woman from the couple takes it, as I work my way across room 1 and into room 2, the middle one. I was supposed to work my way over to a second actress whose name was Sherry, (Didn't catch her last name) and she was to take the other two drinks and meet up with Mary for some exchanged dialogue. Sherry joked with me, saying that someone must really hate me because I had to carry the tray with the glasses. Since the room was so crowded, it was difficult to work my way over there in time to meet Sherry, so they had to give me a different route throughout the room and Sherry would just pick the drinks up off of a table. During one of the takes, people were grabbing at the drinks on my tray, but one extra grabbed one of the taped down glasses and gave it a good tug. It tilted my tray up and I tried to balance it out but I over compensated, so the loose glasses went falling to the floor. It was loud and the champagne(Which was really Ginger Ale) went splashing over one of the coffee tables and the floor. I was so embarrassed and apologized to the crew and told them what happened. They weren't bothered at all and we cleaned up the mess and went right back to filming. We did the scene for a good 6 takes all the way through and then did it again from different angles. Mary was meeting with this guy who was talking to her about breaking up with someone. It was obviously a scene that takes place in the middle of the storyline because other people's names were being used and I had no clue what they were referring to…but it was definitely a scene used more for character building than anything since it was going into the character's personal lives. Anyways, we did a lot of takes. Lots of different angles. Then eventually we broke for a small break. We were taken to a back alley where a snack cart was waiting for us. They had bottled water and Gatorade. Trail mix, crackers, pretzels, granola bars, etc. We all pigged out and talked about our parts. We joked around about my mishap with the spill, amongst other things. About 10 minutes later, they brought in different groups of people who were in different rooms, to do some pick-up shots. My group was brought back in and we continued from where the last scene had ended which was in room two where the bar was. The art in the gallery was based on an old NM artist named Rosa Garcia who worked on the railroads back in the late 1800s. She would paint on old pieces of wood from the train yards and her collection was what was on display.(She was 'made-up' for the story) I was able to take home one of the programs designed for the shoot and used as a prop which was pretty cool. After some more shots, we eventually broke for lunch around 5 pm. We headed back to the Golden Saloon and ate a pretty decent meal that consisted of Steak, chicken breasts, veggies, tilapia, all kinds of fruit, and a huge dessert table. We ate real good and hung out until the AD came and took us back to the gallery. We were all starting to get tired especially after a nice big lunch like that. There were people/extras of all ages there, ranging from teens to elderly. We were all excited to be in the show, but you could tell on the faces of everyone just how worn out they were getting. We were told it was going to be an all-day shoot, but we didn't know that it would literally be all-day as opposed to a full work day. Anyways, we were told that the shoot covered 8 pages of the script which had a lot of dialogue. Basically a day and a half of work was being crammed into one day.
In all the following takes, I had a death grip on my tray because I refused to spill the drinks again, and I was really happy when I returned from lunch to find that they had put the tray away. In the next scene, I was just going to hang out around the bar and pass out water bottles to the people, which was fine with me.
The next scene had Mary talking to her male counterpart and they come across a scruffy looking guy who is smoking a cigarette in the gallery. The male actor jumps on the smoker's case and tells him to put out the cancer stick. He puts it out on the floor and walks away, as some tension builds up in the gallery. They were obviously foreshadowing something that would occur later in the show. As the actors enter the third room, another actress enters from room one, who is drunk and makes a loud remark about how she wasn't invited to the art show. Mary and partner quickly rush towards her to get her out of the gallery, probably because she is supposed to be under protection, but then a fight breaks out between the women. It was a pretty intense fight. Some cool hair pulling, some slapping, the drunk girl fell on the floor, had some real tears…it was played out rather well. I was impressed. They had to do this take several times because some of the extras rushed to observe the fight too fast, while on another take, one of the extras was actually smiling, instead of having a 'shocked' look on her face. She apologized and said she was smiling because she liked fights. lol.
Anyways, the drunk eventually makes her way out of the gallery as we all return to our tasks and that was pretty much it. A lot of dialogue takes place in the shoot, but like I said, it had to do with a story that we didn't know anything about so the content didn't really sink in.
Anyways, we filmed the drunk's entrance and exit from several different angles, then we wrapped! Everyone was relieved because it was a very long day. A 14 hour shoot!
Everyone headed back to base camp while I was trying to track down my shirt and glasses. During one of the scenes, the black couch that I had stashed my shirt and sunglasses behind was moved and my shirt was no where to be found. I was a little freaked because I had to return my waiter shirt to wardrobe and didn't have anything to change back into. I was finally able to find someone named Kevin, who was a prop guy( who looked like a red headed Comic Book Guy from the Simpson's with a lisp) that knew where my stuff was. He walked me back to base camp and told me all about his moped back home in Dallas. He was a pretty cool guy.We returned our wardrobe, got our I-9s approved, headed back to the shuttle and went to the parking lot. After saying our goodbyes, we all took off. I went and picked up Jacen from my dad who was babysitting and got home around 1 am. It was a long day, but also fun and something that I definitely wish I had more time to do. There were extras being needed to play photographers and reporters for a shoot the following day for Kevin Costner's new film, "Swing Vote", but I had to work! :angry:
Anyways, I was told that the show will be on the USA network around Jan 2008. It's an 11 episode program and seemed like it could be pretty decent . We'll have to see how it goes then!

Last edited by Chnyst (22 Sep 07 :: 05:35)

Chnyst · 22 Sep 07 :: 10:32

Here's some pictures I was able to snap off with my camera phone:

Outside of the Art Gallery the scene was filmed in

Misc signs that were out on the sidewalk and street

The 'fake' entrance to the gallery

Two of the actors hanging outside with us at the snack cart

The gallery program 'prop' and some dirty napkins Mary gave me during a scene. lol

TeeJay · 22 Sep 07 :: 11:46

That's really cool, Sean. Sounds like you had a blast, apart from it being a long shoot. When you know what ep it's gonna be in and when it airs, let me know, I'll download "you".

-TeeJay

domesticelefant · 22 Sep 07 :: 20:37

Ooooh, that is REALLY long! I promise I will read it tomorrow, but since I just arrived home from a busy Saturday, I am tired now and I don't think I can concentrate on an English text that long. Sorry. But I am sure it has been a great experience and I am looking forward to read it.

Chris Marquette Message Board

#1 22 Sep 07 :: 05:30

My "In Plain Sight" Experience

#2 22 Sep 07 :: 10:32

Re: My "In Plain Sight" Experience

#3 22 Sep 07 :: 11:46

Re: My "In Plain Sight" Experience

#4 22 Sep 07 :: 20:37

Re: My "In Plain Sight" Experience

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